The False Faces Part 38

Time, he considered, had been kind to Sophie--time, the mysteries of the modern toilette, and the astonishing adaptability of womankind. Splendidly vital, like all of her sort who survive, she seemed mysteriously able to renew that vitality through the very extravagance with which she squandered it. She had lived much of late years, rapidly but well, had learned much, had profited by her lessons. To-night she looked legitimately the princess of her pretensions; the manner of the grande dame suited her type; her gesture was as impeccable as her taste; prettier than ever, she seemed at worst little more than half her age.

And her quick intelligence mocked the privacy of his reflections.

"Fair, fast, and forty," she interpreted smilingly.

He pretended to be stunned. "Never!" he protested feebly.

The woman reaffirmed in a series of rapid nods. "Have I ever had secrets from you? You are too quick for me, monsieur: I do not intend to begin deceiving you at this late day--or trying to."

"Flattery," he declared, "is meat and drink to me. Tell me more."

She laughed lightly. "Thank you, no; vanity is unbecoming in men; I do not care to make you vain."

Aware that Cecelia Brooke was listening all the while she seemed to be enchanted with the patter of Mr. Revel and the less vapid observations of Velasco, Lanyard sought to shunt personalities from himself.

"And now a princess!"

"Did you not know I had married? Yes, a princess of Spain--and with a castle there, if you must know."

"Quite a change of atmosphere from Berlin," he remarked. "But it has done you no perceptible harm."

That won him a black look. "Oh, Berlin!" she said with contemptuous lips.

"I haven't been there since the beginning of the war. I wish never to see the place again. True: I was born an Austrian; but is that any reason why I should love Germany?"

She leaned forward, her fan gently tapping the knuckles of his hand.

"Pay less attention to me," she insisted, with a nod toward the middle of the room. "You are missing something. Me, I never tire of her."

The floor had been cleared. A drummer on the dais was sounding the long-roll crescendo. At the culminating crash the lights were everywhere darkened save for an orange-coloured spot-light set in the ceiling immediately above the dancing floor. Into that circular field of torrid glare bounded a woman wearing little more than an abbreviated kirtle of gra.s.s strands with a few festoons of artificial flowers. Applause roared out to her, the orchestra sounded the opening bars of an Americanised Hawaiian melody, the woman with extraordinary vivacity began to perform a denatured hula: a wild and tawny animal, superbly physical, relying with warrant upon the stark sensuality of her body to make amends for the censored phrases of the primitive dance. The floor resounded like a great drum to the stamping of her bare feet, till one marvelled at such solidity of flesh as could endure that punishment.

Sophie Weringrode lounged negligently upon the table, bringing her head near Lanyard's shoulder.

"Play fair," she said between lips that barely moved.

Without looking round Lanyard answered in the same manner: "Why ask more than you are prepared to give?"

"The police ran you out of America once. We need only publish the fact that Mr. Anthony Ember is the Lone Wolf...."

"Well?"

"Leave Berlin out of it before this girl."

Lanyard shrugged and laughed quietly. "What else?"

"We can't talk now. Ask me for the next dance."

The woman sat back in her chair, attentive to the posturing of the dancer, slowly fanning herself.

Lanyard's semblance of as much interest was nothing more; furtively his watchfulness alternated between two quarters of the room.

On the farther edge of the circle of tropical radiance he had marked down a table at which two men were seated, Dressier and O'Reilly. No more question now as to the personnel of the conspiracy; even Velasco had thrown off the mask. The enemy had come boldly into the open, indicating a sense of impudent a.s.surance, indicating even more, contempt of opposition. No longer afraid, they no longer skulked in shadows. Lanyard experienced a premonition of events impending.

In addition he was keeping an eye on the door to the elevator shaft. Once already it had opened, letting a bright window into the farther wall of the shadowed room, discovering the figure of the maitre d'hotel in silhouette, anxiety in his att.i.tude. He was waiting for somebody, waiting tensely. So were the others waiting, all that crew and their fellow workers scattered among the guests. Lanyard told himself he could guess for whom.

Only Ekstrom was wanting to complete the circle. When he appeared--if by chance he should--things ought to begin to happen.

If tolerably satisfied that Ekstrom would not come--not that night, at all events--Lanyard, none the less, continued to be jealously heedful of that doorway.

But the hula came to an end without either his vigilance or the impatience of the maitre d'hotel being rewarded. Writhing with serpentine grace to the edge of the illuminated area, the dancer leaped back into darkness and the folds of a wrap held by a maid, in which garment she was seen, bowing and laughing, when the lights again blazed up.

Without ceasing to play, changing only the time of the tune, the orchestra swung into a fox-trot. Lanyard glanced across the table to see Cecelia Brooke rising in response to the invitation of dapper Mr. Revel.

In his turn, he rose with Sophie Weringrode. "Be patient with me,"

he begged. "It is long since I danced to music more frivolous than a cannonade."

"But it is simple," the woman promised--"simple, at least, to one who can dance as you could in the old days. Just follow me till you catch the step.

It doesn't matter, anyway; I desire only the opportunity to converse."

Yielding to his arms, she shifted into French when next she spoke.

"You do admirably, my friend. Never again depreciate your dancing. If you knew how one suffers at the feet of these Americans--!"

"Excellent!" he said. "Now that is settled: what is it you are instructed to propose to me?"

She laughed softly. "Always direct! Truly you would never shine as a secret agent."

"Not as they shine," Lanyard countered--"in the dark."

"Don't be a fraud. We are what we are, and so are you. Let us not begin to be censorious of one another's methods of winning a living."

"Agreed. But when do we begin to talk business?"

"Why do you continue so persistently antagonistic?"

"I am French."

"That is silly. You are an outlaw, a man without a country. Why not change all that?"

"And how does one effect miracles?"

"Germany offers you a refuge, security, freedom to ply your trade unhindered--within reasonable limits."

"And in exchange what do I give?"

"Your services, as and when required, in our service."

"Beginning when?"